Blood & Mud

Rugby Video: Top 6 Nations tries from each team

Stuart Barnes might be a large ball of pompous gas these days, but check out his skills in the England try!

Which is your favourite?  Hard to see past Phil Bennett, what a player that man was. 

Nigel Owens' beautiful bollocking now available on clothing!

Nigel Owens's already legendary scolding of Treviso's Saffer scrum-half, Tobias Botes, (above) was not featured on B&M at the time, but it was pedalled excitedly on the blog's Twitter and Facebook accounts. 

While no excuse is needed for enjoying it again, we have one today as Ruckin' Shirts UK have released a range of "This Is Not Soccer" tees and hoodies for our purchasing pleasure.

 And I thought he would never better his "Get everyone in 'ere" 30-man telling of 2010.

Rugby Video: Leicester commit two yellow card offences at the same time within a two-feet radius

Leicester are famous for their uncompromising, solid and let's be honest very successful play.  However, even for them this must be a first - two players binned for simultaneous, separate offences, on different opposition players, occuring right next to each other!

George Chuter hits Morgan Parra late after the Clermont man pops a pass, and Manu Tuilagi immediately windpipes the bloke that receives Parra's pass.  Oustanding work.

As an aside, the more we see of Morgan Parra the more our man-crush on him increases.  He looks about 12 and weighs about 9 stones, plays with a style of such insouciance it's like he hits a huge bong before kick-off; yet he tackles like a demon, will play in any position with flamboyant aplomb, and now it seems he will mix it with a gnarled hooker if he feels aggrieved. Brilliant.

And as for Manu Tuilagi: for all his talent, he really needs to stop being such a knob-end. 

Thanks, as ever, to Rugby Dump for the vid.

Rugby Video: Shane Williams retires almost perfectly, and yet does it perfectly. Much like his career.

This blog's opinion on the stature of Shane Williams and the impact of his exit has already been given; but today he retired in a way that was so nearly empirically perfect - the only thing missing was a win - but its falling just short mattered not.  Spiritually it was perfect, and that is all we will and should remember. 

He led out his team in front of a packed house of 72,000 adoring fans and a TV audience of many more from many nations, all equally in his thrall.  He chokes back genuine tears as his anthem rings out like a regretful yet glorious peal of bells while Ryan Jones does a perfect south walian man's comforting strategy of patting him on the head once, and no more.  He scores in the dying minutes, he then clutches his children in the post-match interview and humbly states, "I've had the best time of my life."

So have we Shane.

Watch this video and ask yourself, do you really give a shit who won or lost?

Rugby Video: Imanol Harinordoquy's dad invades pitch to help his lad out in a fight

Only in rugby could this happen.  Moreover, only in French rugby could this happen.

Fair play to the man for trying, but to say he didn't offer much in the way of pugilistic ability is an understatement.

Bet he could still take Iain Balshaw, though.

Rugby Video: Zinzan Brooke admits that the New Zealand should not have won the Rugby World Cup

Sort of.

“For more insights and analysis from the Heineken Ambassadors into Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand, please visit www.thisisthegame.com.”

The only adequate response to the France haka fine is...

...to show this video again.  Note how the NZ players are not even facing the opposition during this "challenge" they are laying down, they are facing the stands.

Why? because the Haka used to be a bit of novel entertainment for the crowd, and we all enjoyed it to be fair.  This was until some overly earnest people and, of course, the sponsors got hold of it and turned into into a quasi-religious ceremony that sucked all the joy from it.

Kiwis will tell us that our joy is nothing to do with it, that they perform it for cultural reasons and if we don't like it then tough.  Fine, but if such pre-match rituals are important to the All Blacks, or any other nation with such a tradition, and nothing to do with entertainment or the crowd, then logic dictates that they should do it in their dressing room.  This would put an end to the frequent palaver that oppositions reactions to it cause, such as that which the IRB have created with France this week.

Fact is, the only people who really want to see the haka are people who take a passing interest in the game of Rugby.  It's neither entertaining for, nor wanted by most serious rugby fans.

As a perfect example of this, my mum rang me the night before the RWC Final to ask me what time it kicked off, when I pointed out my surprise that she wanted to watch it she responded with, "I don't, I just want to watch the haka."

Rugby video: The legends talk about the Rugby World Cup finals.

Scott Quinnell pulls no punches about France here.

For more insights and analysis from the Heineken Ambassadors into Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand, please visit www.thisisthegame.com.

Video: Legends discuss the Rugby World Cup Quarter Finals

Zinny is forthright as usual!

“For more insights and analysis from the Heineken Ambassadors into Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand, please visit www.thisisthegame.com.”

Video: Rugby + Stephen Fry = Required viewing

Here's the nation's (and by that I mean Britain's) favourite clever yet posh person giving his views on Rugby.  

There are two things in this video that should give you great comfort:

1) He loves the game

2) Like us, he doesn't think England are much good either.

If Fry says it, it must be true.

“For more news and views from A-List celebrities into Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand, please visit www.thisisthegame.com.”